"From these garish lights I vanish."
In this engraved illustration from the March 19 issue of the Illustrated London News, Dickens is shown at his reading desk, in evening dress and with the inevitable red carnation in his buttonhole, at the last of his "Farewell Readings," which took place at St. James's Hall in London on March 15, 1870. The journal reported that Dickens brought his long series of readings to a final close